Witch Hunt Read online

  Witch Hunt

  Marie Batiste

  Copyright © 2020 Marie Batiste

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written consent from the writer.

  DEDICATION

  To the delightful Miss Veda and the exceptional Messiah.

  Other Books by Marie Batiste

  Moon Investigations

  Witch Hunt

  Rachel Dixon

  The Last Thing You See

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Prologue

  Day 1

  Rose Stone closed her eyes and prayed her surroundings would change. The grogginess she had felt when she first opened her eyes had subsided only to be replaced by a dull headache. The smell didn’t help either. The air was heavy with the smell of manure.

  She knew where she was. Not the location exactly but the building she was being kept in. A stable. She had seen it when he dragged her from the car and slung her over his shoulder. An old stable with a brick house next door. The only lights outside were the headlights from the car. As he carried her towards the stable the world faded to black.

  Rose sat on a soiled mattress in the far corner of the room. She tugged on the metal cuffs around her wrist. The cuffs were tight and wouldn’t budge. She scooted closer to the wall and leaned back.

  A sliver of sunlight came through a gap in the ceiling and illuminated the room. It was sparse. There were two buckets by the door and the soiled mattress.

  “Hello?” “Let me out!”

  Rose waited for a moment. Silence filled the air. She grabbed the chain connected to her cuffs with both hands and pulled with every ounce of strength she had. Nothing.

  “Anyone there?”

  She pulled once more before she collapsed against the wall.

  “There’s no point in fighting it. There’s no way out,” said a voice on the other side of the wall.

  “Who’s there?”

  “I’m Waverly. You must be new.”

  “I— I’m Rose. Where are we?”

  “I don’t know. I think it’s an old barn that was remodeled,” answered Waverly.

  “Why are we here?” asked Rose. “Why us?”

  “I really don’t know. I’ve been here so many days I’ve lost count. Not that it matters anymore.”

  “Why doesn’t it matter?” asked Rose.

  “There’s no way out. We’ll die here.”

  A chill ran down Rose’s spine. Waverly had said it so plainly, so calmly. There was no fear, no concern, nothing. Her words, void of any emotion.

  “Are there more?” asked Rose.

  “I think you are number twenty-one.”

  Number twenty-one?

  “What is going to happen to me?” asked Rose.

  Silence.

  “Waverly?”

  “Waverly?”

  Rose repeated her name four more times before she shoved her head into her pillow and screamed. Then she cried.

  Keys jangled far away and she lifted her head. Someone was coming. Rose straightened herself up, wiped her face with the back of her sleeve, and listened. She pressed her back against the wall as a key slid into the lock. Her stomach tightened. The knob turned. Her heart pounded in her chest.

  The door creaked open.

  A man stood in the doorway and smiled. He was thin with light brown hair. He seemed familiar. Like she had seen him somewhere before, but she couldn’t place it.

  “Nice to see you awake,” he said as he stepped in. He took a tray and set it at her feet.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Oh. I’m hurt. You don’t remember me,” he pouted. “Although I was using a glamour spell every time we were together, so I guess that’s to be expected. Oh well. I’m using one now by the way. Don’t need you getting away and describing me to the police. But I doubt that will happen.”

  “I know you?” Perplexed by this new bit of information, Rose began to study his face.

  “Oh, come on now. All the dates we had. Why we just had dinner last night. Don’t you remember? Think hard,” he answered.

  “Tommy?”

  He smiled.

  He looked like the man she had been dating for the past few months, but he was different. His voice wasn’t the same and neither were his eyes.

  “There you go. Now you know. Kind of anyway,” he said. “Well, I’ll see you again tomorrow.”

  Tommy left the room and locked the door behind him.

  “Tomorrow,” she whispered.

  Rose heard the keys nineteen more times. She heard doors open and close and she heard him talking but only him. His voice was muffled so she couldn’t make out what he was saying. She waited a few moments after the keys stopped before she relaxed against the wall.

  “You only get one meal a day,” said Waverly. “You should try stretching it out. Eat slowly. He comes in to change the buckets and leave the food once a day. The shackles and the locks are ananite. Magic won’t work on them, and you can’t use magic while wearing them.”

  Rose had learned about ananite in school, but she never thought she would see it up close. He had left her a sandwich, milk, chips, and some fruit. The longer she stared at the yellow tray the more the tears pooled in the corners of her eyes. Threatening to fall.

  How could she have been so stupid? No one would know what happened to her or who took her. He didn’t want anyone to know they were dating at first, so she kept it a secret. No one even knew what he looked like, not even her mother. She pounded her fist against the floor. It was all part of his plan. How could she fall for it? Now she was going to die in a stable on manure and straw-covered ground. And it was all her fault.

  Day 2

  She cried herself to sleep. Woke up and then cried herself to sleep again. With she felt like she had no more tears left in her, she sat up on the mattress and leaned against the wall. The sliver of sunlight had disappeared. Rose padded the floor to the end of the mattress until she felt the tray Tommy had left earlier. She pulled it into her lap and took a bite of the sandwich. Turkey with a slice of cheese and a thin piece of lettuce, and yet it was one of the best things she had ever tasted.

  “Are you awake?” Waverly’s voice broke through the silence.

  “Just woke up.” Rose chewed her last bite of the sandwich.

  “You made it through your first day.”

  “Yeah. Maybe I should start keeping count. Scratching it into the floor or something,” said Rose.

  “I lost count after forty, so good luck with that.”

  “Forty days?”

  “Yeah. Some have been here longer. One girl had been here almost a year the last time I talked to her,” answered Waverly.

  “The last time?”

  “Yeah, he put a spell on her. She can’t speak now,” answered Waverly.

  “Why?”

  “She was talking too much, I guess. She knew him. The real him without the glamour spells. She was talking about him. She told us his real hair color is black. She even told us his name,” answered Waverly.

  “What is it?” Rose scooted closer to the wall.

  “Can’t say. None of us can. He… did something to us. We can’t say his name.”

  “What did he do?” asked Rose.

  “Dark magic,” sighed Waverly.

  �
�How did he do it?”

  “He took us behind the stable. We were in chains, so we couldn’t run, and he cast the spell. One by one. He took our blood and wrote something in our mouths. When he was done, he told us if we ever uttered his name without permission again, we would die. One of the girls, I never learned her name, didn’t believe him. So, she said it. But before she could finish… It was like… she was choking, you know. She was clawing at her throat as some black substance poured from her mouth. Everyone was screaming. Crying. She died right there in front of us. Now no one talks much. Not that I hear anyway,” explained Waverly.

  “What does he do to us?” asked Rose.

  “Nothing,” replied Waverly. “Just taunts us and feeds us one meal a day. That’s it.”

  Rose noted the complete lack of emotion in Waverly’s voice. She didn’t sound sad or scared. It was like Waverly was completely numb to being trapped in a stable for over forty days. Rose wondered if she would start to feel the same way. She tapped her head against the wall and wished she knew why. He had to be keeping them for some reason. If it was just to kill them then why keep the girls for so long? It didn’t make any sense.

  The chain that connected her cuffs was nailed into the ground by a large spike. She pulled at her restraints again. And again, and again. Trying to work the nail out of the ground. Nothing happened, but she kept working on it. She would pull until her arms were sore. Rest and then again until she fell asleep. It was a nice distraction. She had cried until she could barely open her eyes. There was nothing else to do.

  Tommy came in a little while after the sun came up to drop off her food for the day. A ham sandwich, fruit, chips, and some milk. She ate it slowly, starting with the fruit and then later in the day the chips and finally when it got dark, she ate the sandwich.

  To get through the day she had to put home out of her mind. Every time she thought of her mother, her friends she felt hopeless. A gut-wrenching sadness she didn’t want to feel. It was only her second day in the stable, and she had cried six times. A vast improvement from the first day. Rose found that the less she thought about her home, the less she cried. So instead she focused on the spike and releasing her restraints.

  Day 10

  It moved. Slightly. She heard it. The spike scraped against the cement as it moved from its post. Rose clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle a shriek. It wasn’t much, but it still made her the happiest she had been in the past ten days.

  Waverly had told her not to count the days because there was no point. No way out. But Rose couldn’t help it. She marked every time the sun came up by etching a line into the ground with the edge of her cuffs.

  Ten days.

  Ten days in the darkness except for the few slivers of light that peeked through in the morning. Tommy or whoever he was, came every day to bring them their food. He stopped taunting her around day five. Opting to just drop the tray at the foot of her mattress and change her buckets. The only voice she had heard the past five days was Waverly’s.

  They talked about their food, what they had received, and what they wished it was. Rose tried to imagine what outside of the stable looked like and would then describe it to Waverly.

  “What are you doing over there?” yawned Waverly.

  “Huh. What do you mean?”

  “Your chains keep rattling,” answered Waverly.

  “I’m just bored. Can’t sleep anymore so I’m trying to stay busy,” replied Rose.

  She wanted to tell Waverly what she was doing and how the spike moved but she knew Waverly would discourage her. While Waverly had given up hope, Rose clung to it. Like it was all she had in the world because it was. She had to do something. It was either work on the spike or cry. And she was all out of tears.

  “By doing?” inquired Waverly.

  “Staying active. Moving around.”

  “Okay,” replied Waverly.

  Rose waited for Waverly to say something else. To fill in the silence with either her words or the light roar of her snoring.

  “What do you look like?” asked Waverly.

  “What do I look like?”

  “Yes. I haven’t seen anyone except him for a long time. What do you look like? Tell me something about yourself,” replied Waverly.

  “Um… I’m twenty-three. I have brown hair and green eyes. Five feet six. Um… Let’s see, I was going to college—”

  “What college?” interrupted Waverly.

  “College for Others,” answered Rose.

  “Me too,” replied Waverly her tone changed from emotionless to perky.

  “What was your favorite class?” asked Rose.

  “Well, I really liked my Advanced Spells Class and my History of Others Class. You?”

  “Astrology. I loved that class,” sighed Rose. “Staring at the stars and trying to decipher their meaning. Some spells work better when certain stars are in the sky. You know, I think the Emerald Stars are coming out this year.”

  “Emerald Stars?” asked Waverly.

  “They’re supposed to be beautiful. Like little emeralds dancing in the sky and only come out once every thirty years,” answered Rose. “I’ve always wanted to see them.”

  “Maybe you will.”

  “That sounds like hope,” said Rose.

  “It is what it is.”

  The rest of the morning was just as slow as all the rest. In between working on getting the spike out of the floor, Tommy came in with her food, changed her buckets, and left again without speaking. Waverly talked and then fell asleep and woke up to ask Rose more questions. All the while Rose focused on the spike. She worked on it until her arms were sore. Then she laid back on the mattress and closed her eyes.

  “T? You in there?”

  Rose slowly lifted her head from her mattress.

  “Hello? T?” the female voice yelled again.

  Rose could hear footsteps outside her door.

  “Oh, I guess not. Maybe he’s in the house,” said the voice.

  “Wait,” whispered Rose. She pulled herself off the floor and inched towards the door. “Help. Help. Help me!”

  “Who’s there?” asked the voice.

  “Please, help me. Please let me out!” yelled Rose.

  “Who are you?” asked the voice from the other side of the door.

  “I— I’m Rose Stone. Please let me out.”

  The knob twisted and turned but nothing happened. The woman on the other side of the door pushed and banged against it.

  “I’ll be right back,” said the woman as she patted the door.

  Rose heard the footsteps walking away. “No! Don’t go! Please don’t go!” she pleaded.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  The voice was further away. Rose got as close to the door as she could manage. She heard more footsteps, rustling, and a scream.

  “Son stop!”

  Then silence. She heard the door close and then nothing. Rose wanted to say something. To scream. But in the end, she knew it was pointless. No one was coming. The woman was never coming back. And she knew it. And the other women in the cells around her knew it too. That’s why none of them said anything. No one screamed for help. None of them made a sound.

  Was it a trick?

  “Waverly?” whispered Rose as she moved back towards her mattress.

  “You shouldn’t have said anything,” answered Waverly.

  Day 26

  She grabbed the heavy chains that hung from her wrist and swung with all her might. It had taken her twenty-six days to loosen the spike that nailed her chains to the floor. The chains and the spike slammed against the head of her captor. Tommy fell to the ground. Blood pooled above his brow. Rose bolted towards the wooden door. She closed it behind her, but it wouldn’t lock without a key. Standing on the other side she listened.

  In the hallway, there were many doors just like hers that were locked with peepholes. She walked up to the door in front of her and pulled the wooden slat open. She peered through the hole. The room wa
s set up exactly like hers. A soiled mattress on the floor against one wall and two buckets on the floor for the bathroom. A woman was on the mattress face down.

  “Hello,” Rose whispered. “Hello?”

  The woman didn’t move at the sound of her voice. Rose thought of a spell she could use to undo the lock. She stuck a finger into the keyhole. Nothing happened. She did it again. But again, nothing happened.

  “What’s wrong? Why isn’t my magic working?” She whispered to herself. “Oh. That’s right ananite chains.” Her magic wouldn’t work if she had the cuffs around her wrist.

  At the end of the hallway, a heavy wooden door was partially open. She moved towards it. With every step, the chains rattled loudly. As she tried removing the cuffs, she heard someone moan. Rose darted for the door. She had to get out.

  She pushed the door open and inhaled fresh air for the first time in days. The morning breeze gave her goosebumps. She shivered as she took in her surroundings. She felt as if she could breathe again. There was a house to her left and nothing to her right. Nothing but trees. She couldn’t see a road or even a path through them. She looked towards the trees and started running.

  Tree branches clipped her in the face almost knocking her down, but she kept going. She stumbled over fallen branches and rocks. She stopped for a minute to catch her breath when she realized no one was chasing her. Her lungs were on fire while the cuts on her legs bled. She was weak, tired, and hungry, but she had to keep going.

  She started running again. In front of her, she could see a building and a clearing. She ran harder.

  “No,” she whispered.

  She stopped in front of the stable. She had gone in a complete circle and ended up right back where she started. Tommy leaned against the stable doors. He smiled. Rose turned around and ran. She ran in the opposite direction and changed her path by going North.

  She came to a clearing in the trees.

  The house, the stable, and Tommy were there. Out of breath and bleeding, she spun around and ran. Only to come back to the same place. Was that why Waverly told her there was no hope?